Sundowner of the Skies

In the early morning of 16 October 1930, Oscar Garden taxied his tiny Gipsy Moth across London's Croydon aerodrome. His plan was to fly to Australia, which was sheer madness as he only had a mere 39 flying hours under his belt. When he landed at Wyndham 18 days later, no one was expecting him. His flight—the third fastest after veteran aviators Bert Hinkler and Charles Kingsford—captured the world's imagination.

The press dubbed him 'Sundowner of the Skies'. Unlike most of his contemporaries who died in crashes, Oscar survived and went on to a career in commercial aviation. In April 1940, he delivered the flying boat, Awarua, to Auckland for Tasman Empire Airways Limited (TEAL), the forerunner of Air New Zealand. In 1943, he became TEAL's Chief Pilot and Operations Manager and steered it through its formative years. He left suddenly in 1947 and never flew a plane again.

Sundowner of the Skies is a fascinating and compelling biography of Oscar Garden, an unsung hero of aviation, written by his daughter. He was also a very flawed and troubled man. This deeply personal story reveals Garden's failings as a father and the cascade of trauma and violence that has shunted down the family line. Remarkably, the author's compassion for her father shines through.